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<title>Flotilla Astoreth by GeremyTibbles</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26313793">Flotilla Astoreth</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeremyTibbles/pseuds/GeremyTibbles'>GeremyTibbles</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Brigador (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 11:00:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>811</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26313793</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeremyTibbles/pseuds/GeremyTibbles</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Flotilla Astoreth</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In my attempt to catalogue the culture of so-called Spacers (simply Spacers from here on), I’ve found that such an attempt is foolhardy at best. Each group, genetic lineage, gathering of ships and even simply styles of organization shares broad similarities, but an intricate and ingrained uniqueness that makes the task of treating these peoples as a single ‘whole’ as idiotic as trying to catalgoue “terrestrials”, as if the ‘choice’ to live on a planet unified every single culture and peoples that were divised or formed there fell under the same blanket. I preface this article simply to dispel some contemporaries as seeing these Spacers as a single peoples, despite their tendency to unite in warfare.</p><p>To elucidate on this, I present the case of Flotilla Astoreth, a group not dissimilar to the Clades of Vocc and Thrain in their love of bloodshed, but dissimilar in organization and traditions. Instead of being unified solely by genetic batches, the flotilla has many clades unified, with the august calling upon the lesser, ‘housed’ in smaller ships and habitats that travel in unison with the fleet. Throne rooms, meeting halls, segments dedicated to rituals, some orgiastic and hedonistic, others gravely indulging in ritual sacrifice all have been attached and gifted to ships within this nomadic swarm of spaceborne warriors. Breeding rights are treated much the same as in other Spacer clades, but special attention is given to the ‘highest of honors’ to allow a freeborn child to come to term. Birth from a physical womb seems more of a symbolic gesture, as they’re still heavily engineered in utero, but the distinction is a far cry from the Spacers who rely solely on gestation vats to populate their progeny. They take great pride in having no ‘fodder’ in their ranks, and readily take on “vulgates” who prove in victory and defeat that they’re worthy of ascension, a gesture extended to fearsome, planet-born opponents. Stranger still is the need to “save face”. Even successful, high ranking and well liked members of the flotilla suffer severe punishment for being rendered inoperable or requiring a rescue on the field of battle. Unknowably expensive machinery is destroyed rather than let it stand as a monument to their failure, and their rank and honor is stripped publicly and brutally, frequently resulting in death or fates far worse. Stranger, or more horrifically, is the willingness with which these members of the flotilla face this punishment. Doing so with dignity and pride allows them to keep their clade’s name intact, and is a sort of “service in dishonor”.</p><p>Astoreth’s fascination with ritual is similarly contradictory. Clades recall their lineage back to colonies and habitats around the interior worlds. Jovians, Mamertines, Erisians, Terrans and Lunars all proudly recall their heritage, and frequently bare marks of terrestrial religions. Ancient, obtuse and occult imagery decorating their chambers and vehicles. They use old languages: Coptic, Summerian, Egyptian, Akkadian, and a whole host of lesser known names. They see the conflicts they throw themselves into as both epochs for themselves, and the unknowable ‘flow’ of the universe. Seers study the bones and gore of battlefields, of footage, ruins, even the arrangement of shell casings and craters. All of it is divination, lessons learned on a spiritual and tactical level.</p><p>While Flotilla Asoreth supposedly frequent the mythical Hapax Legemenon, their own flagship Vercingetorix and her sister ship Last of Noble Birth seem to be religious meccas for clades and fleets that wish to seek insight into the ‘greater meaning’ of Spacer warfare.</p><p>I am terrified and fascinated that I’m allowed to view these thing, but I am constantly assured, that I am merely here to ‘bare witness’ for my fellow “vuglates”. I find no comfort in this, but my thirst of knowledge gravely outways my instincts of safety. I only hope this transmission is received.</p><p>Aldous</p><p> </p><p>My first encounter, face to ‘face’ with a member of Flotilla Astoreth was terrifying, to say the least. Their gelsuits are typical, the same bright blues and pinkish-red toned ‘helmet’, but the ones who met me wore faceplates, ones resembling human skulls, both stylized and realistic, the less pronounced material around their skulls retracted in it’s native environment to fit more tightly to the head. In addition, each was draped with robes of some unknown material, the cloth behaving in an ethereal fashion in the reduced gravity, flowing with divine aspects of display as if mimicking art of yore. The lead in their formation wore red, the rest wearing paler tones of blue and green, and their leader’s “skullplate” bore a rune on it’s forehead in the shape of a three pronged ‘Y’. Astorethi Spacers seem to put forth a different form of dominance than their less superstitious brethren, instead choosing to appear with authority, but offer the softer handshake, seemingly out of pity. Their intimidation worked, but I hardly felt welcomed.</p>
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